The present invention relates to a leaf paper bundling apparatus that wraps tape around the periphery of a stack of sheets of leaf paper of the same size and shape which cuts the tape with a cutter, and which adheres the ends of the tape together with a thermo-adhesion head to bundle leaf paper.
A bundling apparatus that stacks a required number of banknotes or other sheets of paper of the same size and shape, and bundles them with tape has been disclosed in for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 58312/1985. The bundling apparatus disclosed in this publication has a leaf paper insertion opening open at a front surface of a main apparatus unit, and leaf paper inserted to a bundling position from the opening is positioned confronting a circular rotating wheel. The rotating wheel is provided with a member (for example, a roller) for wrapping tape around the leaf paper that is to be bundled, i.e. the rotation of the rotating wheel moves the bundling tape around the periphery of the leaf paper and also applies a tension to the tape which is then cut by a cutting apparatus. The cut ends are then adhered to one another with an adhesion head.
However, with this conventional apparatus, a first problem is that the rotating wheel is provided at the bundling position to wrap the tape around the leaf paper and so it is not possible for the leaf paper to be inserted from the axial direction of the rotating wheel, that is, from the front of the apparatus. Thus the apparatus is not convenient to use, and the operability thereof is limited.
A second problem is that the leaf paper may not necessarily be positioned accurately at the bundling position when the leaf paper is inserted. Because the tape will not be accurately wrapped if the leaf paper moves while the tape is being wrapped, the leaf paper must be at the bundling position during bundling. the leaf paper can be held by a special holding mechanism prior to the bundling operation but this interferes with the operation of the mechanism that performs the bundling operation. The apparatus is thus rather complex and requires a large amount of installation space.